Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a republic. It had its constitution, its laws, its civil rights, a president, a congress and courts of law. Everyone could assemble, associate, speak and write with complete freedom.

The people were not satisfied with the government officials at that time, but they had the power to elect new officials and only a few days remained before they were going to do so.

There existed a public opinion both respected and heeded and all problems of common interest were freely discussed. There were political parties, radio and television debates and forums and public meetings. The whole nation throbbed with enthusiasm. This country had suffered greatly and although it was unhappy, it longed to be happy and had a right to be happy. It had been deceived many times and it looked upon the past with a real horror. This country blindly believed that such a past could not return; the people were proud of their love of liberty and they carried their heads high in the conviction that liberty would be respected as a sacred right; they felt confident that no one would dare commit the crime of violating their democratic institutions. They desired change for the better, aspired to progress; and they saw this at hand. All their hope was in the future.

Poor country! One morning the citizens awakened dismayed; under the cover of night, while the people slept, the ghosts of the past had conspired and had seized the citizen body by the limbs . . . by its very throat. That grip, those claws were familiar: those jaws, those death-dealing scythes, those boots. No; it was no nightmare; it was a sad and terrible reality: a man named Fulgencio Batista had just perpetrated the appalling crime that no one had expected.

Then a humble citizen of his country, a citizen who wished to believe in the laws of the Republic, in the integrity of its judges, whom he had seen vent their fury against the underprivileged, opened the Code of Social Defence to see what punishment society prescribed for the author of such a coup and he discovered the following:

“Whosoever shall perpetrate any deed destined through violent means directly to change in whole or in part the Constitution of the State or the form of the established government shall incur a sentence of six to ten years' imprisonment.

A sentence of three to ten years' imprisonment will be imposed on the author of any act directed to promote an armed uprising against the Constitutional Power of the State. The sentence increases from five to twenty years if the insurrection is carried out.

Whosoever shall perpetrate an act with the specific purpose of preventing, in whole or in part, even temporarily, the Senate, the Chamber of Representatives, the President or the Supreme Court from exercising their constitutional functions will incur a sentence of between six and ten years' imprisonment. Whosoever shall attempt to impede or tamper with the normal course of general elections will incur a sentence of four to eight years' imprisonment.